Tag Archives: Cerritos

You’re Doing It Wrong

The list of the worst password for 2014 just came out, and it looks like the people’s favorite worst passwords are still at the top: “password” and 123456”. Other winners (or losers) are ‘12345’ (#3), ‘qwerty’ (#5), ‘abc123’ (#14), ‘football’ (#10), and my favorite ‘letmein’ (#13).

In my career as an IT professional, I’ve seen many devices like routers, AP’s and firewalls that have default passwords such as ‘password’ , ‘abc123’ and ‘admin’ (curiously, not on the list), but never have I been tempted to leave that password once the device goes live. It’s like leaving your house key under the ‘Welcome’ rug in front of the door.

Even though passwords are one of the easiest methods to authenticate, some people just don’t take them seriously. Now, I don’t mean that you should have to memorize a 16-character long randomly generated alphanumerical password for every account that you have (though I do know a system administrator that does something like that). Even though having such a strict password policy will dramatically reduce the number of unauthorized access, it’s just begging for the Sys-Admin to be flooded with requests for password changes. Giving users free range to create their own passwords will lead to the above mention passwords, which are begging to get hacked. There is a middle ground that lets users create their own passwords but they are subject to some complexity requirements.

The complexity requirements usually include having a mix of numbers, characters, symbols, and UPPER and lower case letters. The reason why is this makes the password less likely to be hacked by using a Dictionary attack. This type of attack includes trying every word in the dictionary, as well as frequently used passwords, like the ones in the top 25 worst passwords of the year. If you have any of those password in the list, you’ve got an increased chance of getting your account broken into.

Sure there are other ways to authenticate besides passwords. Laptops and mobile devices now have finger print readers, facial recognition software, and even the popular smart card readers. However, all these things you cannot customize yourself. Your fingerprints will not change much over your lifetime, and neither will your face. Maybe that’s a good thing, but if such authentication method gets compromised, it could become a liability. However, passwords are easily replaceable, can be made to fit the user, and ultimately they are the last line of defense in cybersecurity.

At TRA consulting, our philosophy is to be proactive when it comes to desktop and network security. We combine end point tools which can monitor, alert, patch, script, and have the ability to provide remote support. All these tools and more can help you keep your computer and network safe at a fraction of the price of a full-time IT staff. We have many satisfied customers in the Long Beach, Orange County, Southbay, Greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, Arizona, and Midwest.

The Threat Within

What’s the biggest threat to a company’s network security? Viruses? Hackers? Worms? The NSA? It’s none of the above. The weakest point are the users. That’s right, the same people that you trust to use the computers that you want to protect are the ones that are putting it at risk, according to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute. 78% of companies that took part in this study blame their employees for being careless or negligent when following the company’s security policies. Think about it; no matter how secure a computer is (within reason, otherwise the user cannot do their job) the user is the one making security decisions every minute they spend in front of that computer. “Should I click on this Facebook banner ad?”, “This email looks official, let me download the attachment and unzip it”, “Looks like I won the Lottery, even though I’ve never played”

Email is one of the most likely vectors to get a computer infected. Some estimates say that 90% of all email traveling through the internet is spam. Even though that statistic is probably overblown, the amount of spam out there keeps growing by the day. A lot of that spam is not just trying to sell you prescription pills or knockoff watches, but they are also trying to get your personal information and/or delivering an infection. The worst thing is that they spammers are getting smarter and making some of their emails more and more difficult to tell from the real deal. This method of spamming is called Phishing, which is very common and can even evade most spam detectors.

Educating the users is the best solution to keep computer and networks safe. There are many ways to keep a network safe with different devices and programs that will do an excellent job. However, at the end of the day, it’s the user who holds the power with their keyboard and mice to keep the computer out of dangerous situations. Now that companies are beginning to realize just how important is for their employees to be aware of the responsibility they have keeping the company safe from intrusion, it’s up to the company to find a way to better educate the employees at staying safe. This does not mean that traditional methods of security need to go out the window; these two philosophies are complimentary, not orthogonal, to each other.

Spending money in security is not the waste of money a lot of SMB’s (and even some big corporations) think it is. In fact, it’s the opposite; it helps the business to not lose money. Just like the saying, there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one approach towards network security. Whatever your philosophy is, making sure it is well implemented is the biggest hurdle.

At TRA consulting, our philosophy is to be proactive when it comes to desktop and network security. We combine end point tools which can monitor, alert, patch, script, and have the ability to provide remote support. All these tools and more can help you keep your computer and network safe at a fraction of the price of a full-time IT staff. We have many satisfied customers in the Long Beach, Orange County, Southbay, Greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, Arizona, and Midwest.

Beware of the Predator

As if there weren’t enough challenges for growing small and medium size businesses, there is another one to add to their list: Enterprise level malware software at affordable prices. Up to recently, the majority of Data breaches have been targeted at big corporation (Target, Staples, Home Depot, etc.), however now the targets have shifted to smaller companies due to the commercialization of similar malware/keyloggers. Predator Pain and Limitless are two keylogging malware programs that can be bought from underground markets for cheap prices and can be used to attack and spy on anyone. The majority of targets of these keylogging software has been small and medium size businesses, as shown by TrendMicro research. Even though the software can be bought for an inexpensive amount, it is not a rudimentary in its execution. It can steal web (including banking) and email credentials, as well as reconfigure the email account so that it send the victim’s emails directly to the hacker. It can also capture keystrokes and screen shots of the computer. On top of that, it will encrypt all the communications between the infected computer and the criminal’s computer.

The method that criminals use to infect the computers is usually a drive-by download or phishing. Once the computer is infected, the malware will start collecting data, keystrokes and screenshots of the computer. If you are infected with this keylogger, what can you do? Well, there is not much out there in the form of removal of this specific malware. A quick google search for “How to remove Predator Pain” reveals very little on how to properly remove this nasty keylogger. In fact, a lot of the results are about how to use the keylogger and where to get it (paid or free). The only one I was able to find is a bit complicated, and it includes editing the registry, something the average user is not recommended to do, as it could lead to even more problems. There are tools out there that can help get rid of this and other nasty malwares, like Malwarebyes, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware, but the best solution is prevention.

Just like the saying, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. At TRA Consulting we specialize in IT Managed services geared for Small and Medium size businesses (SMB’s). We take care of all their IT needs, including but not limited to: Desktop support, server administration, Cloud Services integration, Network Administration/Security, etc.

With all the threats out there in the cyber-world, having us in your corner is one of the better decisions a growing business can do. . We have many highly satisfied customers in the Southern California area, including San Diego, Long Beach, Orange County, Southbay, and Los Angeles area. Contact us today, and let us take care of all of your computer security needs. Don’t let security threats stifle your business’s growth. Our prices are reasonable and our services are top notch. Call us today for a free consultation. At TRA Consulting, our motto is “Maximum Satisfaction, Minimum Fuss”

Beware of the Predator

As if there weren’t enough challenges for growing small and medium size businesses, there is another one to add to their list: Enterprise level malware software at affordable prices. Up to recently, the majority of Data breaches have been targeted at big corporation (Target, Staples, Home Depot, etc.), however now the targets have shifted to smaller companies due to the commercialization of similar malware/keyloggers. Predator Pain and Limitless are two keylogging malware programs that can be bought from underground markets for cheap prices and can be used to attack and spy on anyone. The majority of targets of these keylogging software has been small and medium size businesses, as shown by TrendMicro research. Even though the software can be bought for an inexpensive amount, it is not a rudimentary in its execution. It can steal web (including banking) and email credentials, as well as reconfigure the email account so that it send the victim’s emails directly to the hacker. It can also capture keystrokes and screen shots of the computer. On top of that, it will encrypt all the communications between the infected computer and the criminal’s computer.

The method that criminals use to infect the computers is usually a drive-by download or phishing. Once the computer is infected, the malware will start collecting data, keystrokes and screenshots of the computer. If you are infected with this keylogger, what can you do? Well, there is not much out there in the form of removal of this specific malware. A quick google search for “How to remove Predator Pain” reveals very little on how to properly remove this nasty keylogger. In fact, a lot of the results are about how to use the keylogger and where to get it (paid or free). The only one I was able to find is a bit complicated, and it includes editing the registry, something the average user is not recommended to do, as it could lead to even more problems. There are tools out there that can help get rid of this and other nasty malwares, like Malwarebyes, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware, but the best solution is prevention.

Just like the saying, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. At TRA Consulting we specialize in IT Managed services geared for Small and Medium size businesses (SMB’s). We take care of all their IT needs, including but not limited to: Desktop support, server administration, Cloud Services integration, Network Administration/Security, etc.

With all the threats out there in the cyber-world, having us in your corner is one of the better decisions a growing business can do. . We have many highly satisfied customers in the Southern California area, including San Diego, Long Beach, Orange County, Southbay, and Los Angeles area. Contact us today, and let us take care of all of your computer security needs. Don’t let security threats stifle your business’s growth. Our prices are reasonable and our services are top notch. Call us today for a free consultation. At TRA Consulting, our motto is “Maximum Satisfaction, Minimum Fuss”

POODLE in the middle

Looks like the trend of security flaws in encryption protocols continues. Heartbleed, Bash Shellshock, and now POODLE. POODLE stands for Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption. This basically means that on encrypted HTTPS connections, applications like browsers will be forced to default down from TLS to SSL 3.0 even when the application supports all the versions of TLS. SSL 3.0 has been shown to be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks since about 15 years ago. However, many applications and servers still use it because they have not adopted the TLS standard for encryption. An example of this is Internet Explorer 6. Many servers still allow browsers to connect using SSL 3.0, like IE 6, which cannot support TLS. If servers or websites dropped connections that did not support TLS encryption, the applications that only had SSL 3.0 would be dropped as well. Even though the majority of currently browsers support TLS, there are still some people who use older browsers. Even newer browsers use the SSL 3.0 protocol as backup, and this is the mechanism that the POODLE attack uses to hack a computer. In order for a hacker to be able to listen in and intercept your private data with the POODLE attack, they have to be within the same network as you, usually in a public Wi-Fi setting, and then have to inject malicious JavaScript code in your computer from visiting a compromised website, then they can start their man-in-the-middle attack to intercept your cookies and other data.

Browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have already patched this flaw by using the mechanism of TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV, which prevents the automatic fallback down to SSL 3.0. Google engineers are the ones that found the POODLE Vulnerability, which will effectively kill any future use (finally!) of SSL 3.0. Chrome will go beyond patching this vulnerability and will get rid of SSL 3.0 from their browser in the next version of the browser (good riddance!). Internet Explorer released a fixit to Even Sony is patching this on their PS3 and PS4 consoles, permanently getting rid of SSL 3.0 as a form of encryption.

There are still some servers (websites) that still rely on SSL 3.0 to authenticate with the clients, but this is slowly getting patched. Even OpenSSL (which was victim of the Hearbleed bug earlier this year) has patched their code with the included the TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV mechanism. However, the good news regarding POODLE vulnerability stop there. There is a Variant that affects TLS connections as well, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

TRA consulting not only focuses on Home Personal security, but also in SMB (Small to Medium size Businesses) security. Our goal is to provide full IT support to growing small businesses who are too small to have a full time IT staff, yet big enough that they need one. We have many highly satisfied customers in the Long Beach, Orange County, South bay, and Los Angeles area. Contact us today, and let us take care of all of your computer security needs. Our prices are reasonable and our services are top notch. Our motto is “minimum fuss, maximum satisfaction”. Call us Today!!